AUGUST LISTINGS - JAZZ IN LONDON

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LondonJazz is a not-for profit venture, but may occasionally take on work as a paid publicist and/or sell advertising packages. Where a piece published after 26th October 2012 appears which is linked to this activity, the text will be followed by the following symbol: (pp)

I'm taking a couple of days off in Paris, eg seeing the Miles Davis exhibition.

But here's something to enjoy. It's the final track, called Dad Logic, from the great 2008 album "Madhouse and the Whole Thing There" by Mike Walker. This disc has spent six months this year on my car CD player and is still refusing to lie down quietly and be ignored.

If anyone knows why we seem to be looking at Andalucian sunsets, pray do tell.

Subscribers to Crescendo Magazine received the sad news this morning from founder and editor Dennis H. Matthews that the 44-page Vol 46 Issue 3 dated Autumn 2009 will be the last ever. The issue also contained the news that Photographer Denis Williams who had worked for 47 years at the magazine had passed away in October.

Café Oto- Venue Review by John Eyles(Welcoming a new writer to LondonJazz)

Against the odds, Café Oto in Dalston is steadily becoming one of the capital’s leading music venues. Opened in April 2008, it is located in part of the beautiful and historic Reeves Artists Colour Works building near Dalston Kingsland station. Since its opening, the development of the Crossrail link has turned the surrounding area into a large building site. In time, Crossrail will help transform and re-generate the neighbourhood - as will the presence of Café Oto. Meanwhile, it has been building a strong reputation with punters, one that is steadily spreading by word of mouth.

Located only two minutes stroll away from the Vortex Jazz Club, Café Oto did not go head-to-head with its neighbour by concentrating solely on jazz. Instead, it operates an eclectic and adventurous programming policy that embraces jazz, improvised and experimental music, rock, folk and world music, as typified by the notable performers who have already appeared there including Henry Flynt, Eddie Prevost, John Sinclair, Phill Niblock, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Sean Lennon, and Josephine Foster.

During the daytime, Café Oto truly is a café, serving snacks, hot drinks and beers. It has a large indoor seated area as well as pavement seating outside on a quiet, pleasant cul-de-sac. It is a popular local meeting place, as demonstrated by its steady stream of customers, many with children in tow. Inside, the décor is comfortable but low-key – a bare concrete floor and whiltewashed walls offset by scrubbed wooden tables and chairs plus sofas.

In the early evening, the café slowly morphs into the performance space with a sizeable area for the players but no platform stage. There is a decent sound system. Acoustics and sightlines are good from all parts and there is plenty of seating space for the audience. Unlike the Vortex which often struggles to accommodate audiences because of its limited capacity, Café Oto feels spacious and rarely has to turn customers away.

Significantly, “oto” is Japanese for music/sound/noise. Café Oto is co-owned and managed by the Scottish/Japanese couple Hamish Dunbar and Keiko Yamamoto. One of the attractions of its programming has been the number of Japanese performers it has brought over, including Otomo Yoshihide, Kan Mikami, Satchiko M, and Toshimaru Nakamura. Each has played for a short residency, a key feature of the programming.

Other forthcoming shows that whet the appetite include runs by Peter Brotzmann, Matthew Ship, Kath Bloom, Joe Mcphee & Chris Corsano, and The Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen.

WayOutWest have been successfully installed and playing to good houses at the Orange Tree in Richmond since September.

There's a new website with a 5 minute video samplerThe video thankfully NOT including a blogger/baritone player appearing last Wednesday with Tim Whitehead and Pete Hurt and getting a seasonal basting in Jingle Bells in concert B major. The content is

This is a heartening story for a winter's day from back in June.A few quotes from First Lady Michelle Obama. Hands up, yes I didn't pay it much attention when it came out.

There was a public jazz workshop in the White House in the summer, featuring Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Paquito D'Rivera.

"Jazz may be America’s greatest gift to the world.”

"My grandfather put speakers in every room of his house, turned up the stereo and listened to music all day long. At Christmas, birthdays, Easter, it didn't matter, there was jazz playing in our household."

"There's probably no better example of democracy than a jazz ensemble - individual freedom, but with responsibility to the group,"

The organizers of the Kenny Wheeler 80th birthday concert at the Royal Academy of Music on Thursday January 14th - the actual birthday- have confirmed to me today that Dave Holland is flying over for the concert.

Like all the other musicians appearing, Holland will be donating his services. Wow.

Subscribers to LondonJazz Wednesday Headlines can enter a prize draw for Ivo Neame's well-reviewed Caught in the Light of Day, with a stellar young quartet of Jim Hart, Jasper Hoiby and James Maddren. Also thanks to Edition Records There's a runners-up prize of an Edition Records desk calendar with a superb photo for each month by Tim Dickeson.

Baron Coe KBE , Chairman of the London Organizing Commitee for the Olympic Games, and I, have more than the one (obvious) thing thing in common :-

We are both, evidently, afflicted with the same curious four-syllable christian name Sebastian, the name of the patron saint of archery targets, a name which ever so conveniently flat-packs into the one syllable Seb, ending in that particularly indelicate voiced bilabial plosive.

But if my namesake's enthusiasm for jazz is less well-known, take note that in this weekend's Desert Island Discs five out of eight of his choices jazz or songbook

Dave Brubeck — The History of a Boy ScoutGeorge Melly — There’ll Be Some Changes MadeFrank Sinatra — Deep in a DreamLester Young — Lady Be GoodLouis Armstrong — West End Blues

London has one venue where the flame of Europe's gipsy jazz tradition burns strongly all year round. It's in Battersea and it's called the Quecumbar.

The team in SW11 are hosting an International Gipsy Swing Guitar Festival from January 17th to January 25th ,with support from Arts Council England, the French Music Bureau and others.

We drew attention in a previous post to the opening gig by Django Reinhardt's young grandson David, but there's another gig which has also caught my imagination. It's by Tcha Limberger,who will be appearing in a trio with his father and Hungarian bassist Vilmos Csikos on January 19th.

Tcha who? Multi-instrumentalist (violin/kaval flute/ guitar/ vocals) Limberger has an extraordinary background. He must be the ultimate one-man embodiment of many of the cultural and linguistic cross-currents, oppositions and contradictions of continental Europe. He has taken his birthright, his multiple cultural hinterlands, and rather than exploring them from one perspective or staying put in one place, has gone out of his way to seek out these varied and contradictory influences. I certainly needed to get out the map to appreciate his exploits.

Limberger is in his early 30's. His mother is Flemish and he and grew up in Bruges (Brugge) in the Flemish part of Belgium. But on the paternal side, there is the inheritance of a strong family gipsy music tradition. His grandfather was violinist Piotto Limberger and his father is guitarist Vivi Limberger who will also be appearing with him on January 19th.

I caught up with him on the telephone last week in the region he and his Hungarian wife and their two small children have called home for the past year and a half, the mainly Hungarian-speaking Kalotaszeg province in Romania. Home, that is, when he's not ...performing in Oudenaarde or Antwerp in Flanders with guitarist/composer Herman Schamp... or in Brussels with Roby Lakatos... or in London or Wales.... or giving masterclasses in Weimar... or accompanying Argentinian contemporary dance in Berlin...or experimenting with Kaval flutes in Bulgaria. (Now you see why a map is needed)

He told me about the musical fascinations which have gripped him. His first leanings as a small child were towards flamenco. As singer and guitarist, he was already performing publicly at the age of 8. At 13 he showed an inclination for contemporary classical music. "At seventeen I grabbed hold of the violin." Inspired by recordings by Hungarian violinist Toki Horvath, and by his own grandfather, he started performing widely. "But at 22 I knew I liked this music, but someone told me it was completely inauthentic. " Which was the cue for Limberfer to head for Budapest and to study with Bela Horvat, who taught him the technique and repertoire of the Hungarian gipsy violin.

Since then he has slotted into a multitude of musical contexts, an has previously visited the UK in 2008 with his Budapest Gypsy Orchestra.

The sad news has just broken that Ronnie Scott's club co-founder - and business manager for most of the 50 years of its existence - Pete King died yesterday. His last few years were sadly dominated by a battle with Alzheimer's. But his contribution to the development of jazz in this country is probably without equal. RIP.

Cai Marle-Garcia is a 23-year-old self-taught player of the fretless bass. His mastery of the instrument, his groove-filled chops – and his his pink pyjama bottom slacks – bring to mind the late, great Jaco Pastorius. And, if you love bass-led jazz, that can only be good thing.

Marle-Garcia had assembled a crack band to launch his debut album Mr. Ears. The always innovative Kit Downes – bearded and hoodied – supplied some pulsing keys; Darren Altman on drums slotted in well with the bass and kept things moving along; James Lascelles on percussion used an arsenal of toys and drums to add rhythmic colour flashes (though, on a couple of tracks, I felt there was a little too much percussion); Tony Woods on sax blew, and blew hard, but he also knew when to bring it down a notch on tracks like Orpheus.Sagat Guirey on guitars spent quite some time knob-twiddling on his pedals board but, once he was satisfied with his mix, threw out some great high-end riffs to complement Marle-Garcia’s low end rumblings.

As an ensemble they were tight, there wasn't an ounce of musical fat on them. The band was full of groove, particularly on the latin feel of Black Beast of Bolivia, and they demonstrated that fusion has a place at the top table of contemporary jazz. They all seemed to be having a ball.

Unobtrusive at the back of the stage, and unfazed by the failed PA microphone limiting interaction with the (disappointingly small) audience, Marle-Garcia was content to let his bass do the talking.

Clearly influenced by Pastorius’ tone and approach -and dress sense!- Marle-Garcia nevertheless has carved out his own style: marvellous phrasing, dextrous runs up and down the fingerboard with pitch perfect precision. Marle-Garcia has that knack of making it sound perfectly natural for the guitar to be up front leading the melody. Definitely a name to watch out for.

Dan Nicholls ' Anglo-Danish band Hyderabad offered a challenging set of contemporary jazz . This band's excellent use of time signature changes and poly-rhythms shone on tracks like Kinski (so good they played it twice). Angular rhythms and jagged harmonies emulated the character of the notoriously unstable German actor. Sax player James Allsopp was on good form, mixing legato passages with Ornette-ish sweeps up and down the scales and hard-core blowing. Bit I thought some of the tracks went on a tad too long, and to judge by some of the audience’s propensity to chat, I may not have been alone in thinking this.

Allsopp was ably supported by keyboardist Dan Nicholls, bassist Petter Eldh and drummer Marc Lohr, who gave his frequently re-adjusted drum kit a full work-out. I have to admit that this wasn't my cup of tea at first hearing, but repeated listening might well bring more rewards.

Some interesting ideas start at the 606. Nigel Kennedy 's new, three-electric-violin "Chilling-est Violinists" or "Big Jam" project was conceived at the club, when Kennedy sat in at a gig by club regular, violinist Chris Garrick.

But this is Christmas, the time we are all reminded - sometimes positively, sometimes forcibly- that nests are there to be outgrown. This rebellious romp may indeed have already outgrown the parental home at birth. It seems clearly destined for bigger spaces, for summer festivals, for the outdoors.

The 606 was packed last night with jovial pre-Christmas folk in the mood for a celebration. Nigel Kennedy, who had donated his fee to Medical Aid for Palestinians, bounced onstage, presented violinists Omar Puente and Chris Garrick, ever-impeccable, ever-smiling bassist Alec Dankworth and drummer Krysztof Dziedzic to the audience. Every introduction led to an obligatory fist-bump. And finally: "My name's Nigel and I'm doing very well." Fist bump for the audience. Loud cheer.

Soloing duties were democratically shared out between three violinists, particularly in Nikki Yeoh's happy opener Dance of Two Small Bears. Garrick and Puente were heading off in interesting and different directions. Puente was exploring high sounds, quoting Bolero, being playful, Garrick seemed most content using pedal effects and reverb. But the guiding style they were tending to follow and imitate was Nigel Kennedy's. He tends to cut impatiently to the chase, and that chase is a sound derived from the Hendrix guitar wail. Repeated downward double-stopped glissandi at high volume, fast tremolandos, ear-splitting eeks. There were the occasional gentler moments, such as the opening to Kennedy's Hills of Saturn, but you didn't have to wait long for the rocket-boosters to get switched on. The audience loved it, I can imagine a standing crowd at a festival lapping it up even more. I found it overpowering.

The main meat of the second set, which I felt really asserted the loud, rebellious core vibe of the band was Kennedy's arrangement of Third Stone. 40 minutes might be fast for an orbit, but last night it seemed a bit too long. At one point Kennedy the rabble-rouser was facing back, eyeballing drummer Krysztof Dziedzic, as if egging him onwards to play out even louder.

But I did enjoy Omar Puente's Just Like "U" which kicked off the second half. It started with some rim-shots from Dziedzic, a jaunty bass line from Alec Dankworth, a sassy montuno from Nikky Yeoh, and then all three violinists trilling, a wash of sound. The composition then found its way to a theme resembling Average White Band's Pick Up The Pieces, which then morphed into a low-down double-time slow blues. Nikki Yeoh capped off her solo, laughing her head off, with who-cares palm clusters. There are musicians who just can't help themselves from having fun, and Yeoh is one.

The following resolution was passed unanimously yesterday in the US House of Representatives:

House Resolution 894 would resolve that the House of Representatives:

• "Honors the 50th anniversary of "Kind of Blue" and recognizes the unique contribution the album has made to American jazz;• "Directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to transmit enrolled copies of this resolution to Columbia Records;• "Encourages the United States Government to take all appropriate steps to preserve and advance the art form of jazz music;• "Recommits itself to ensuring that musical artists such as Miles Davis and his Sextet receive fair protection under the copyright laws of the United States for their contributions to culture in the United States; and• "Reaffirms the status of jazz as a national treasure."

The Loop Collective announce a second, five-day festival at the Vortex from Weds 17th to Sunday 21st February. Triple or quadruple bills every night, including appearances from related collectives and friends.

New York. It's good to be reminded of the energy and the vitality of the city which never sleeps. A place where the polite English phrase "Please may I have..." translates into "Gimme...." That occasional refuel of New York caffeine is some combination of an imperative, a duty and a pleasure. And if one can get it here in London, without needing to venture forth with our sadly depreciated British pounds, so much the better.

The team who run the Vortex understand the need to get that fix, and they do their utmost to fulfil it by putting on the New York musicians from the downtown scene who are getting talked about. Brooklyn guitarist Mary Halvorson tours Europe regularly, but this was her only UK appearance this year. Sufficiently remarkable, indeed, to lure the outside broadcast team and the van from Radio 3. Jazz on 3 will broadcast the gig on January 28th.

Mary Halvorson 's trio with John Hebert on bass and Ches Smith on drums is a regular working band , currently doing a seven-date European tour. Halvorson herself has played on several of Antony Braxton 's projects, and in other settings: in a duo with violist Jessica Pavone, and in an alt-rock duo with Kevin Shea.

The clip above is typical. You often get the stating of an insistent pulse, the setting up of a groove, which doesn't so much get developed, as collided into, interrupted, and then re-asserted and revisited. None of the tunes was announced - I assumed they were all by Halvorson herself- they set up differing moods, and are allowed to speak for themselves.

In the first tune the dominating voice was the upright bass of John Hebert, (pronounced ebb-bear). A sustained, unbroken legato line based on a repeated riff was allowed to grow in volume until it got angry, then got pounced on and thumped hard by all three players, and then re-emerged quietly again from the carnage. Halvorson, directing proceedings was mostly in a subsidiary comping, commenting role here.

But even when she's leading, she doesn't overwhelm with fast licks. More likely she'll interject an insistent pulsed semitone clash, or a repeated melodic or scalar fragment. But there is always an underlying sense of control and of the structure.

Structure is a word to use with care with this music. While each number is written out, and all three players are often to be found referring to the written page, the structures are not designed to give the listener any comfort or predictability. Maybe even quite the opposite. There are false signals, blind alleys. And as for the endings, they are precise, deliberate, and clearly pre-determined; but at the same time they manage to be curious-oddball, tricky, and above all, impossible to second-guess. Sometimes silence and repose seemed to come precisely when you least expect them.

Ches Smith is a drummer with big physical presence. At one point Smith's hand was not deemed sufficient to get the tension he wanted on a side drum skin: a long leg with very large baseball boot on the end of it got lifted into service.

The effect of size and power which Smith exudes is compounded by the fact that Halvorson herself is so tiny, about five foot tall. She is a strong musician who dominates from the corner. She's calling the shots, but with undemonstrative, unshowy playing, and virtually no looping or effects.

This was an intense gig, it's music which demanded full attention and absolute silence. The Vortex has done well to cultivate an audience which responds to music of this seriousness. Not a comfortable or comforting evening, but a fascinating and worthwhile snapshot of a defiant, confident, edgy genre-crossing strand of contemporary music.

The National Youth Jazz Collective has a new website (copyright 2010!) which has gone live over the weekend.

The new site has a listing of all the projects coming up in 2010Q1,in Devon, Cornwall, Huddersfield, Rotherham and Norfolk, plus CPD for teachers in Cambridge. There is a very impressive range of tutors. Jazz has an amazing capacity to renew people's lives: Steve Waterman (above) even gets a new christian name (whoops, we all make mistakes...)

There are also details of the auditioning process and of the Bursary Scheme for the Summer School.

I should declare an indirect interest, as a trustee of the Foundation for Young Musicians,which NYJC describes as its parent.

Kit Downes writes about the bands he plays in and has played in and the audiences they attracted; with considerable candour about some negatives from his time in Empirical; and - mostly - about jazz and making music generally as a process rather than as a product.

Hugh Masekela is a musician with a real soul. He has a genuine warm, charismatic, and simple way of building special relationships, both with his fellow musicians and with an audience.

Last night, in a sold-out Barbican Hall, the 70-year old Masekela was very much on home ground. A recurrent theme in this concert, reprising and developing from a similar event in November 2007, was the special relationship between the homeland of South Africa and "London" - playfully, repeatedly pronounced by Masekela with estuary vowels. Masekela paid tribute, for example, to one famous beacon of hope : the permanent 24/365 vigil maintained for many years outside South Africa House in Trafalgar Square.

All those links felt very immediate last night. Not only was Masekela surrounded on stage by London-based exiles, there were also large sections of the audience from London's massive community of South Africans. The kind of people who, one could feel, all have their own story, their own memories the apartheid years, of Sharpeville perhaps, of daily earth tremors in Johannesburg. Unlike a phony singer who recently, embarrasingly flunked it at the Stade de France, these were people who know the words to Nkosi Sikelele Africa off by heart -and needed no encouragement at all to get up on their feet and to sing it.

This was a concert with authentic and emotional moments aplenty. Nomathemba was deliciously brought to life by veteran bass clarinettist John Stenhouse of the LSO. Then the LSO Community Chorus started to dig into that infectious South African groove, where the and-of-four is always hit far, far harder than the first beat. Stimela, with Masekela falsetto-shrieking the sound of a train whistle, was electrifying and unforgettable. Masekela's brief duet with LSO tuba player Patrick Harrild in Grazing was another moment of pure joy.

Each half began with a brief, interesting, and newly commissioned composition, dropped into the menu with the compliments of the LSO like an appetiser or zakouski. Jason Yarde 's Rude Awakening began with a gentle, pastoral Aubade, which then shifted through Messiaen's soundscapes to a cycled groove and a sudden ending. Yarde was also responsible for some very effective arrangements throughout the evening, and appeared in the second half as an inventive alto saxophone soloist. Andrew McCormack 's Incentive reminded me of Stravinsky's Agon, building tension with cross-rhythms. François-Xavier Roth conducted throughout with both precision and balletic grace. The LSO Community Chorus, in their second outing of this music, and strengthened by South Africans, were delightful.

But above all it was an evening for memory and for emotion. The morphing of Masekela from Jazz Epistle, to fronting pile-driving US fusion bands, to the statesman who now fronts a symphony orchestra, is one of the great musical journeys of our time.

Vortex board member Oliver Weindling has gone public on his Towerofjazz blog on a sudden cost increase now facing the small club, putting on music seven nights a week, with a capacity of just 90 people. A five star review in the Financial Times today...but no easy solution to a problem like this.

"Any thoughts?" he asks.

(Photo above, Omar Puente at the Vortex by Helena Dornellas)

Weindling writes as follows:

PRS has confirmed to the Vortex that its PRS payment has gone up, from the summer this year, from £8 a night to £32 a night (a quadrupling!) This, I understand, is the standard rate for all small venues.

We find this a shocking increase to us as a club which already operates on a knife-edge. On many nights the club itself, after payments to the band, hardly has enough to cover core costs, let alone an increased PRS payment. To cover it, we would require, on average, an increase in audiences by over 10%, if the full increase were to be met from the club's share of door income. So it certainly puts the club at risk, by now having to pay an additional £8000 a year, if we are going to be able to stay as a 7 night a week jazz venue, which is unfunded.

They have listened, but have been unwilling to react, to our plea about helping new composers and PRS members. They have put us in the same boat as any small venue. Even fully improvised music is subject to the same conditions.

The complaint is that a) the increase represents a quadrupling; and b) it is backdated.

A disgruntled punter at a festival at Sigüenza in Spain managed to get the Guardia Civil called in. He didn't like the music and got them to investigate his claim that the free jazz he was listening to, played by a group led by American saxophonist Larry Ochs (above) was "contemporary music" and not actually jazz.

He is claiming that a doctor has prescribed that contemporary music might be "psychologically inadvisable" for him, and is pursuing a case for a refund of his ticket price. The Guardia Civil came to the conclusion (!) that the music of Larry Ochs may indeed not be jazz and that he does have a case worthy of being put before a judge.

Here's today's Guardian story including an interview with the festival director.

I make no guarantees on this one, but equally make no apologies for any unintended consequences from reading this post. Caveat insomniacus lector.

According to the blog of ever-sharp-eyed Peter Hum from Ottawa, WBGO and NPR will be webstreaming Dave Douglas's gig from the Village Vanguard from 9pm local time tonight. Yup, that's 2am for us GMT-ites.

'Word had got out early about pianist Craig Taborn 's visit, judging by both the quantity of reserved tables and lack of standing room at the Vortex on Monday night.' Appearing regularly with an array of artists including saxophonist Tim Berne and Detriot's electronic music pioneer Carl Craig, the breadth of Taborn's musical background was evident as he led his own trio though a diverse selection of original material.

Featuring bassist Thomas Morgan (already a veteran of both Steve Coleman and Dave Binney's groups at the age of 28) and drummer Gerald Cleaver, the trio wove together a musical landscape which contrasted repetitive ostinato-based grooves with sections of free improvisation.

The fact that thirty minutes of continuous music had passed before the trio made even a (fleeting) reference to the kind of instrumental roles we often associate with a traditional piano trio highlights the pluralism of styles and approaches to the music which Taborn has adopted. The 'free' sections of the music especially proved fertile ground for the pianist to demonstrate a variety of influences in his own playing, from the blues through to the extended harmony of contemporary classical works.

In contrast, the leader's groove-based compositions are suggestive of the rhythmic complexity and hypnotic quality of Steve Coleman's music. However, the similarity ended here as the trio went about the deconstruction of these grooves, arriving at varying degrees of abstraction.

Gerald Cleaver's playing was a model of this approach, juxtaposing sections of pushy groove playing with extended textural explorations (employing his own idiosyncratic drum-kit setup). It is testament to the ingenuity of the trio that they are able to marry these seemingly disparate parts together, maintaining a high energy throughout the performance.

Well received by the musician-heavy audience, Taborn has managed to develop a trio which adopts a multiplicity of improvisatory approaches without losing a sense of its own distinct character.

This outstanding British septet (with the exception of Canadian tenorist, Steve Kaldestad) launches into a batch of eight originals expertly arranged by leader and flautist, Gareth Lockrane with considerable aplomb. Juggling an arsenal of three different flutes spanning the middle, alto and bass tessituras, Lockrane enchants the listener with his fluid melodic improvisations coupled with his wondrous mix of orchestrational and compositional talents.

The velvety flugelhorn of "Dog Soup's" Robbie Robson scores widely with his pensive but gripping melodicisms. Trombonist Trevor Mires anchors the lower mediums of the ensemble work, as well as contributing fine solos with just the right balance of angularity and lyricism. Vancouver BC- based tenor saxophonist Steve Kaldestad is up to his usual seamless yet serpentine-like improvisations showcasing a most centred and rich tone. The steady rhythm team of Robin Aspland , piano, Matt Miles, bass and Matt Home on drums provide sterling support throughout, goading soloists at every turn with incisive verve .

We'll Never Meet Again is my personal favourite of the disc. This boasts a haunting but heartfelt and lyrical melody. The leader's alto flute gingerly lopes above the subtle counterlines by various three horn combinations exploring a lower and more introspective mood with moving chromaticisms.

A fabulous collection, this, by a truly great lineup that could hold their own in any land.

LondonJazz will have a DVD of Art Blakey to give away to one lucky LondonJazz Wednesday headlines reader, courtesy of Jazz Icons. Instructions on how to put your name into the hat will be in tomorrow's newsletter (December 9th) . If you don't subscribe yet, now's the time.

I normally take a LOT of persuasion to get me into the Christmas spirit, but this CD has already done it. The surprising ingredients, i.e. carols, Bley, Swallow, and a brass quintet, are as described on the tin.

Let me explain. The compositions are constantly playful re-workings of Christmas carols by the composer-pianist Carla Bley, plus a couple of originals.

As part of the Carla Bley package comes that ineffably gentle giant of the electric bass Steve Swallow (sample his perfectly placed nonchalant fast-walking/running crotchets on Hell's Bells.) Ed Partyka is a bass trombone and tuba player from Berlin who knows and books quite exceptional brass players, all of whom have cast-iron brass chops -wonderful sound, outrageously clean ensemble and intonation - plus very flexible jazz chops.

The project started in Essen in Germany's Ruhrgebiet, of all places. The Philharmonie there was being run by an adventurous director called Michael Kaufmann, whose new gig is the annual Kurt Weill celebrations in Dessau. After a first appearance in Essen in 2006, the project was revived for a tour in 2008, and the personnel all ended up in a relaxed studio setting to record it in a village the Vaucluse. A couple of tracks at the end were recorded live in Berlin.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen has the gentlemen relaxing in 5/4. Jingle bells with brass reggae backings done with superhuman accuracy. O holy night with Swallow declaiming the melody high up on the bass. Nice.

Carla's Christmas Carols is on WATT distributed by ECM, with number 2712413.

Nice gig at the Bull on Wednesday 16th, featuring South African born harmonica player Adam Glasser with Jim Mullen on guitar, Geoff Gascoyne on bass and Clark Tracey drums. Some South African tunes, some jazz, some very civilized dialogue.

There will be a celebration of Ian Carr 's life and music on Tuesday Feb 23rd in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, also fundraising for Alzheimer's charities.

It's not yet on the South Bank's schedule yet. On the bill are the four surviving members of the Rendell-Carr Band, a revived Nucleus, plus Guy Barker performing "Northumbrian Sketches" with a 17 piece string orchestra.

A hat-tip for Lance Liddle's bebop spoken here blog which broke the news. Serious inform me that South Bank Centre members will be able to book from this Friday, and the general public like you n me on Saturday. More details later in the week.

A few people have been on to me in the past few days about a gig on Dec 17th by self-taught 23-year old fretless bass player Cai Marle-Garcia, who is launching the CD Mr Ears at Charlie Wright's.

Pianist Kit Downes, saxophonist Tony Woods, the impeccable Darren Atman on drums, and a guitarist I'm also being badgered to get out and hear, Sagat Guirey (also on the nice clip above) are in the band. No slouches there.

Fellow blogger Ian Mann of THE JAZZ MANN has listened to the album.....

Sounds like an interesting gig! Support band Hyderabad with saxophonist James Allsopp are on from 8pm

UPDATE: on the day of his 89th birthday, Brubeck was honoured along with Mel Brooks, Bruce Springsteen, Robert De Niro and Grace Bumbry at the 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors. Here's the CNN coverage, with an affectionate tribute from Herbie Hancock. And here's JazzTimes' full account of the tribute to Brubeck

In Boston student circles, tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi is known as "The Gonz." Old habits die hard, so one former Berklee student told me last night at the Vortex. Even after many years, when you hear that the Gonz is in town, you dust yourself down, you get yourself out, you go listen.

Bergonzi's Boston teaching post is not at Berklee, but a few blocks further down Huntington Avenue, at the New England Conservatory. Bergonzi is revered as educator, but there's also a slight air of mystique, a distance from the fray about him. His official website biography is peppered with words like command" and "integrity." And his full, seven-part series "Inside Improvisation," which will set you back over £200, is strictly for the very determined indeed.

And as a a player? He has a big, full, individual sound, and a ferocious technique, with access to a full-toned altissimo register and multiphonics, all under super-human control. Both the Coltrane/ Brecker and the Sonny Rollins legacies have been thoroughly internalized. The physical playing stance on tenor is a very straight posture, eyes either closed or staring into the middle distance. He also found himself regularly comping over bass solos at the piano, pursuing both floaty modal stuff and voice-led changes with equal seriousness of purpose.

Bergonzi is a natural for the Vortex, and he drew a near-capacity crowd with a lot of devotees, aficionados, students, and quite a few awesome saxophonists gathered in reverent awe at the back.

Last night was the final gig in a long European tour with Bergonzi's regular trio, bassist Dave Santoro and Parisian Italian Andrea Michelutti on drums. The free improvisational language at the beginning was complex, but also fleeting, evanescent, hard to get hold of. I found greater simplicity and with it more eloquence for the first time in the fade-outro to the first number La Cucarach. And the ideas started to build and to connect more into paragraphs in the third number Splurge. Tadd Dameron's Soul Trane was a hushed delight. I also enjoyed Michelutti's solo soft-mallet soundscape opening to Stoffy, and, later in the same number, the sophisticated interplay of complex melodic ideas between Bergonzi and Santoro.

A gig like this is a feather in the cap for the Vortex, whose consistently adventurous core programming run on a shoe-string should by now have delivered them Arts Council regularly funded status. They also have Craig Taborn on Monday.

There may be post-festival fatigue around, but the idea that there is, as some Twitterers have been putting around, any kind of "hole" in London's jazz life after the London Jazz Festival can be dealt with swiftly thus: it's absolutely wrong.

Up pops that Mulberry bag. Our irrepressible mystery Chelsea shopper has been down to the 606 in search of the unfamiliar: the Yamaha jazz scholars evening

There's been criticism of reviewers only writing about the things they think are great. So I decided I'd go to the Yamaha Jazz Scholars at the 606 club on Monday. I didn't know any of the bands. It just seemed a good idea to get out and hear some of these young music college students.

Most of the bands were trios - with occasional extra people, with an emphasis on drums. The bands were certainly various. I only really liked one of them.

There were two trumpet players and two saxophones during the evening but mostly, piano or bass and string bass and drums. With five bands to get through, no one had a lot to do - and the old fashioned thought of a 3/4 minute song came to mind more than once! All the bands played well - there was a hard time for for a rather sweet/bluesy trumpet player in Mark Perry's Quintet who had a drummer much too much in evidence, making a sort of "Rushing out to sea" noise.

The Kit Downes band gave a really professional finish to their set, but the one that I really liked was the Alex Munk Trio who had a good idea of dynamics, rather than going at eveything as though it was the last go round. I shall look out for them again.

The 606 was full at the start of the evening but I imagine lots of the people were fans of particular bands as it gradually cleared - so when the Alex Munk came on it was the really the aficianados who got the best of the evening!

You can hear these bands again as there is a covermount CD with December Jazzwise - but with other things on it too, I'd have keep on counting the tracks. Hm. Not sure about that.

Just when you thoght there were enough best-of lists around, up come the 2010 Grammy Nominations.

On a first inspection no Brits apart from John McLaughlin (any more?) but the French do make a few showings: not least veteran pianist Martial Solal , who was out making new fans in his 80's at Kings Place.

The self-deprecating one-liners about the size of the audience or the quality of the food have gone (its eponymous co-founder once said that 3,000 flies can't be wrong); it is also more commercially managed these days, but Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club at 50 is still a venue that Scott, had he been alive today, would embrace.

It is still the spiritual home of British jazz. It is not for us to say whether Ronnie's is better than other great venues such as Birdland, the Village Vanguard or the Blue Note. But it does have a unique character: audiences get up close enough up to the players to see their humanity, as Scott once said, to see when they let you down and when they shine. This was a club run by musicians for musicians, although Scott never thought he was good enough on tenor saxophone to play alongside one of his early guests, Sonny Rollins.

Like jazz, the club has been through its ups and downs: after its heyday in the 60s, it struggled later, and almost went under in the 80s. There was Scott's own untimely death and the club's sale to Sally Greene, the owner of the Old Vic. The club lost its way into soul, pop and cabaret. But Ronnie's has never been about the past, although it has a glorious one. Virtually every jazz star except Miles Davis has performed live there. It has always searched restlessly for future jazz forms, and no one can accuse this year's cutting-edge contemporary jazz programming, played to enthusiastic audiences, of being an artistic sellout.

The first ever winner of the British Academy of Songwriters and Composers Jazz Award for Contemporary Jazz Composition is......... Jason Yarde. First with the story was Jazzwise. Follow this link for more details.

Timing, you might say. The London Symphony Orchestra/ Hugh Masekela concert next Thursday at the Barbican will feature two of his compositions. Sold out, returns only.

The range of things on offer at the upstairs bar in Ronnie's gets wider. Indeed, Ronnie's Bar now has its own WEBSITE

Here, courtesy of BBC Inside Out is a short film about tapdancing sessions featuring Will Gaines and Junior Laniyan. Until someone tells me differently I will credit the script to the BBC's Department of Stating the Bleeding Obvious - as in:

The words "Ascot" and "winter" remind me, unavoidably of one of these. Those useless water heaters, more often on the blink than working. Brrrrr.

(Does anyone else remember these horrors?)

But that's, obviously, not the point. I'm thinking of the Sunday lunch jazz at Jagz in Ascot, right by the station. I feel warmer already. Under the watchful eye of talkative Jagz founder John Gripton, I notice some VERY nice programming for two Sundays, featuring two great singers and dream rhythm sections. It's £16 all in including a very good traditional lunch. Take the rellies. Walk the meal off in Windsor Great Park....

Enter two of the most musical singers working in jazz, and instantly likeable people: